Study has shown that dogs can distinguish between gibberish from speech, and they are capable of distinguishing between familiar languages and foreign ones.
Researchers from the Eötvös Loránd University took brain scans of 18 dogs as they played either real speech in, or gibberish derived from, either Hungarian or Spanish.
They found that different auditory regions of the dogs’ brains responded when the animals were identifying speech as compared to telling if a language was familiar.
Each canine’s secondary hearing cortex handled the latter.
This is the team’s first demonstration that the brain of a nonhuman can tell two distinct languages.
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Study has shown that dogs can distinguish between gibberish from speech, and they are also able to recognize the differences between common and unfamiliar languages. Pictured: Kun-kun, the pet dog of ethologist Laura Cuaya, awaits a brain scan as part of the study
Researchers from the Eötvös Loránd University took brain scans of 18 dogs as they played either real speech in, or gibberish derived from, either Hungarian or Spanish. Pictured: paper author Attila Andics looking after Barack the dog during the tests
Researchers found different responses from the auditory areas of dogs’ brains when they were trying to identify speech, as opposed to distinguishing if the language is familiar. Pictured: Kun-kun at the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine
The research was conducted by ethologist Laura Cuaya and her colleagues at the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary.
“Me and my family moved to Hungary from Mexico a few years ago. […]For my postdoctoral research. My dog, Kun-kun, came with me,’ explained Dr Cuaya.
‘Before, I had only spoken to him in Spanish. So I was wondering whether Kun-kun noticed that people in Budapest spoke a different language — Hungarian.
“We all know people notice it, even infants who are not verbal. Maybe dogs don’t notice the difference. We don’t ever draw dogs’ attentions to the sound of a particular language.
“We created a brain imaging research study to discover this.”
Researchers trained 18 dogs in their research, which included Kun-kun. who were used to normally hearing only either Spanish or Hungarian to lie motionless in a type of brain scanner called a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine.
During each scan, the dogs were played excerpts taken from the 1943 children’s book ‘The Little Prince’ spoken in both Hungarian and Spanish.
Alongside comparing familiar and unfamiliar languages, Dr Cuaya said that they also played ‘scrambled versions of these excerpts, which sound completely unnatural, to test whether [dogs] detect the difference between speech and non-speech at all.’
The researchers found that the dogs exhibited entirely distinct patterns of brain activity in their primary auditory cortices when listening to speech versus non-speech — regardless of whether such was derived from a familiar language or not.
There was, however, no evidence to suggest that dog brains would have a neural preference for speech over that of non-speech.
‘Dog brains, like human brains, can distinguish between speech and non-speech,’ said paper author Raúl Hernández-Pérez, also of the Eötvös Loránd University.
However, the ethologist added, ‘the mechanism underlying this speech detection ability may be different from speech sensitivity in humans.
Whereas human brains are specially tuned to speech, dog brains may simply detect the naturalness of the sound,’ he explained.
The dogs were given excerpts of ‘The Little Prince,’ a 1943 children’s book. The readings were in Spanish and Hungarian. Pictured: Kun Kun ‘poses with’ the novel
This is the first scientific demonstration that an animal brain can tell two distinct languages, according to scientists. Pictured: Kun-kun
According to Dr Andics the findings are “exciting” because they reveal that humans can learn more about regularities in a language. However, it is not clear if the ability to learn about regularities of a language is limited to dogs or common among other non-human species.
Alongside being able to tell real speech apart from gibberish, the team found that dogs appear to also be able to distinguish between Hungarian and Spanish.
The difference, however, was that these language-specific brain activity patterns were instead focussed in the canines’ secondary auditory cortices.
In addition, the researchers noted that older dogs — despite proverbially being unable to learn new tricks — were much better at distinguishing between the familiar and unfamiliar languages.
‘Each language is characterized by a variety of auditory regularities,’ explained Dr Hernández-Pérez.
“Our research suggests that dogs are able to pick up the sounds and patterns of language when they interact with people.”
‘This study showed for the first time that a non-human brain can distinguish between two languages,’ said paper author and Eötvös Loránd ethologist Attila Andics.
It is exciting because it shows that learning about regularities in a language isn’t something only humans can do. However, it’s not clear if the ability to learn about regularities of a language is limited to dogs or common among other non-human species.
“Indeed it’s possible that brain changes over the thousands of years dogs have lived with humans has made them more able to understand language, but that is not always the case.
His conclusion was that Future studies must find out this.
NeuroImage published the full results of this study.